Handcrafting a vibrant Arab world

Perler Basmala Square {Tutorial}

To begin our 7th Ramadan crafts 30 day challenge, we spent our day learning about the Basmala.

The Basmala is commonly known as the Islamic phrase b-ismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi written in Arabic as بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ . The translation of Basmala into English is: In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Arabic-speaking Christians sometimes use the name Basmala to refer to the Christian Trinitarian formula: In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is written in Arabic as باسم الآب والابن والروح القدس and spoken as bismi-l-’ābi wa-l-ibni wa-r-rūḥi l-qudusi.

While we were looking at all the ways the Islamic Basmala was written online, my daughter saw one design that caught her eye. She decided to use Perler beads to recreate the square. Since we have used Perler beads to start our last two #RamadanCrafts challenges, we hope you have plenty of beads on hand for this calligraphy project.

Supplies

Choose your colors, note that our Basmala will need three: one for the Arabic letters, one for the dots for those letters, and one for the background. We went with yellow and purple, with red dots. Start on one end and lay out your design on the pegboard. It’s okay if it takes you a little while to figure out your pattern. the great thing about these beads is you can move them around.

Once your beads are all in place, you’ll want to use the special paper that comes with them and iron for a few minutes. Watch to make sure your beads don’t get too hot and start to over melt. You should only need a few seconds. Flip your square, place another ironing sheet (or remove your original if you only have one) and iron the second side.

That is it, your Basmala is done and ready to be placed into a square shadow frame.